


Advent VII

by Tammany



Series: Assorted Advent Stories, Christmas 2014, All-sorts, some connected. [7]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-05
Updated: 2014-12-05
Packaged: 2018-02-28 06:03:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2721470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>More happy stuff. Mummy and Father arrive for the holiday.</p><p>This one is just happy. Really. I love the Senior Holmeses....And I just plain adore Father Holmes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Advent VII

Christmas was coming. Christmas with his family, at the Big House. Siger, sitting in the back seat of the cab from the train station, felt it bubbling inside him like holiday champagne punch. To extend the metaphor, his mood bounced like a sliced strawberry on the bubbles, and his spirit hissed and sizzled and soared, all booze and beatitude.

“You’re humming, dear,” Em said, elbowing him in the ribs. “We’re not even there and you’re humming already.”

So he was. He smiled to himself. How appropriate. He opened his mouth and sang, in what was left of a solid baritone, “ _I’ll be home for Christmas, you can plan on me. Please have snow and mistletoe and presents ‘neath the tree…”_

“How apropos,” Em drawled, eyes sparkling. “And it looks like you’re getting at least part of your wish. Though I think it scandalous of Her Majesty to allow Our Mikey to manage the weather.”

“Who better?” He smiled. “After all, he knows what tradition is owed.”

“He’s a bit of a stick, dear,” Em said, clucking. “I worry. He needs taking out of himself.”

Which Siger thought a complete hoot. His older boy, who’d succeeded on a level not seen in his family since Captain Holmes the Privateer had smiled a wicked smile at Queen Elizabeth and winked his way into a tidy estate…his Mycroft needed taking out of himself? The man who as good as ran MI6, or was no more than one consultation away from it?

Still, she had a point. Mike always was the quiet one. And he himself was curious what had led to this party.

“You’re humming again.”

“And you love me for it.”

“They’ll think you’re a bit of a loon,” she said, fretful. “Bad enough being married to me—I’m always a bit much. I’d hate Mikey’s friends thinking we’re both too much.”

“It will be fine, Em, love. You know Mike—he wouldn’t have invited us if he didn’t want us, warts and all.”

“Yes, he would,” she grumbled. “He’d do it because he’d think it was his duty.”

Which was a point. Siger shifted to a sadder “Silent Night,” as he considered it. He glanced out the window at the falling snow.

“We’re almost there,” he said. “Just passed the big rock in the Avebury’s pasture.” The cab turned, drove up a lane, and turned again.

“He’s keeping it up nicely,” Em said, as the cab slipped down the drive of the estate through the falling snow. “Oh, look—the big sycamore is gone.”

Siger hummed approval. “Always was planted in the wrong place. He’s replaced it with a hybrid chestnut, I see.”

“You’re not upset?”

“No,” he said.

“You climbed that tree as a boy,” she said, as though that was sufficient grounds to keep a dying tree rather than replace it with a healthy one.

Siger smiled. That was his Em, he thought—brilliant, beautiful—and batty as a belfry. “No, no,” he said. “Mike does a good job with this place. Looks better under his care than it did for—well. Probably ever.”

Em sniffed. “You took superb care of it.”

He laughed, then. “No, dear, I didn’t. I thought it was an albatross around my neck and I resented every minute I had to spend there and every penny I had to spend on it. I was ready to turn it over to the National Trust. When you came along…well.” He slipped an arm around her waist and squeezed. “You changed everything. I never would have thought of living in the Dower House…”

“Someone had to take you in hand,” she said, with the casual arrogance that amused him more than it had ever offended him. “You were going to end up an old eccentric in a cardigan, scrambling your way through the deathwatch beetles and the dry rot.”

“Yes, love,” he said—and was rewarded with her irked, amused glare. She smacked him gently, and clucked.

“There it is—Good God, he’s got it lit up like Disneyland!” She huffed. “Such a waste of electricity.”

“He’s turned the back acres into a windmill farm,” Siger said, already moving in the passenger seat, ready to slide out when the cab stopped in front of the Big House. “I think he can afford to light the place up for Christmas.”

“What can have got into him, though?” she asked. “Mike hates Christmas!”

Siger just shook his head, murmuring he had no idea…and sensibly not explaining to her that her eldest son adored Christmas, but hated the ruckus she and her younger son always managed to make of it, one way or another. After all, he thought, Em and Sherlock honestly couldn’t help it. Mad as Cheshire Cats, the two of them, and not a whisker’s difference when it came to hyperbole and melodrama. Siger loved it—or at least, he loved the way their tempests reassured him over and over again that they were in his life. But he could hardly blame his quiet, shy older son for his retreat.

He did wonder what had led Mycroft to go against all previous behavior and throw a Christmas house party at Holmescroft.

The cab stopped, and Siger slid out, fishing in the pocket of his parka for his wallet.

“Never mind that,” Mike’s voice called from the top of the stairway down to the drive. “I’ll cover the cab.”

He smiled to himself and continued to sort through his wallet, handing the cabbie a wad of notes. He smiled again—the cabbie smiled back and tapped his nose.

“Man’s lucky to have a good son,” the cabbie said. “More lucky to not need ‘im to pay the cab fare.”

“Father, you’re impossible,” Mycroft clucked, coming up at his elbow. He glared at the cabbie. “I can cover it.”

“No need,” the cabbie said with a grin, and trotted back to the boot of the car. “You can help carry you Ma an’ Pa’s luggage, though.”

Mycroft huffed, Em huffed. Siger chuckled and passed a wink back to the cabbie, reached into the scrum the four created to grab the strap of a rucksack, and turned, only to find himself facing a silver-haired man in a heavy knit Nordic jumper, all cobalt blue and white with a yoke of snowflakes.

The man smiled, and managed to pluck the rucksack away from Siger without quite being offensive. “I’ll carry that,” he said, with a boyish grin, his accent a soft, amiable blend of Estuary and West Country. “Mike says you and th’ missus are in the suite on the ground floor that looks out over the kitchen gardens, yeah?”

Siger found himself stricken into silence, and the man shuffled where he stood, uneasy in the older man’s unwavering gaze.

“Sorry—I’m Lestrade… Greg.”

“Oh!” Em said, standing at Siger’s elbow. “Sherlock’s Met detective! He’s talked about you! And John’s blog….”

Then Mycroft was there, carrying the big suitcase and hovering close at the detective’s side. “He’s not ‘Sherlock’s detective’" he snapped….then looked over at the older man with a bashful glow that lit a candle in Siger’s heart. He opened his mouth. “Greg’s….”

“A friend,” the older man said, smiling up into Mycroft’s face. “To both of ‘em. Work with ‘em.” Mischief flared. “Good friend.”

Siger was not, perhaps, the genius his wife was…but he could see instantly the love, the uncertainty, the resolutions not yet reached, the hopes on both sides. He could also see the steady, good-natured strength of the man—a man who’d somehow won the admiration and loyalty of both his dear, difficult sons.

He smiled and stepped forward, and said, as though sharing a secret, “Oh, I know you. You’re the sane one.”

He was delighted when the man turned back, tapped his nose knowingly, and then walked away up the stairs, carrying the rucksack and singing “Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful,” in a rough, sweet, battered baritone that spoke of years of shouting over police wardrooms and the roar of city traffic.

“My goodness, he’s lovely,” Em said, watching with wide, round eyes. Dear Em, always able to appreciate a decorative man! “Where ever did Sherlock find him?”

“Sherlock didn’t,” Mike said, with a smug smile. “I did,” and led his parents up the stairs into Holmescroft, singing along with the man Siger was now sure was his lover.

The champagne punch fizzed and bubbled, the strawberries danced gleefully—and Siger Holmes entered his familial estate humming like a bumblebee and happy in a way he’d never expected to be. His difficult, beloved eldest had finally found heart’s home.


End file.
